Met chief: we are in danger

Britain's top policeman today underlined his warnings about the terrorist threat to Britain.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said: "We are now in a state of real danger."

He firmly rejected the accusation that he had been scaremongering or that the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, had rebuked him for saying that an attack on Britain was "inevitable".

Sir John told The Spectator magazine in an interview: "Two to three days later I met the Home Secretary and he was very happy with what was being said. It may have been that he was misreported.

"Anyone who sees us together would say that ours is the warmest kind of relationship you could have. I see him officially and sometimes unofficially."

Sir John said that up to September 11, 2001, he did not think anyone was aware of the real extent of the threat.

"To be perfectly frank, the emphasis before then was on defeating Northern Ireland terrorists. We are now in a state of real danger."

The difference, he said, between these terrorists and the IRA was the scale of what they were prepared to do. "It was a wake-up call and we are now awake."

Sir John was asked about the likelihood of a terrorist attack after the recent wave of arrests.

He said: "There is the chance that someone will slip through. It is my job to ensure they don't succeed."

And denying that he had been scaremongering, he said: "If we didn't actually look at the danger in a realistic way, we'd be in trouble for not doing everything we ought to do.

"Those of us who've actually had experience in fighting terrorism - in my case for 32 years - know that we need to alert the public to help us."

Sir John went on: "I know there has to be a balance between telling what I know to be the truth and frightening people. But two-thirds of what I said in the speech, where I mentioned the inevitability of an attack, was about reassuring people.

"I would be derelict in my duty, and so would every police officer, if we didn't actually engage the main means of combating terrorism. I want people to be alert but not alarmed. We have to use every tool in our armoury, and the biggest tool is the population."